News
International News 29 September 2009 - US firms quit Chamber of Commerce over climate change position by Andrew, The Guardian.co.uk Nike and Johnson & Johnson are among the corporations criticising the largest business organisation in the US over Chamber's resistance to 'cap-and-trade' legislation. The largest American business federation, the US Chamber of Commerce, has suffered a rash of high-profile walkouts as multinational companies become uncomfortable with the organisation's hard-line opposition to measures tackling climate change. In a sign of mounting acceptance in the business community of a need for action on carbon emissions, big names including the sportswear manufacturer Nike and the household products empire Johnson & Johnson have attacked the chamber for its refusal to back "cap-and-trade" legislation supported by the Obama administration. This week, the largest US nuclear power generator, Exelon, resigned from the chamber over its environmental policy, following two fellow utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric and PNM Resources. (more...) 11 September 2009 - Total Says 2014/2015 Hydrocarbon Demand Could Outstrip Supply By Tara Patel, Bloomberg Radio Total SA Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie said there could be a new oil crisis when demand for oil and natural gas outstrips supply around 2014 or 2015, Le Parisien reported, citing an interview. He said oil prices could rise above last year’s record as demand rises and that the company won’t pull out of Myanmar, the newspaper reported.(more...) 9 September 2009 - The Stonewalling of Peak Oil: An Interview with Robert Hirsch on the deliberate avoidance by the U.S. government to talk about peak oil By Steve Andrews, EV World "The peak oil story is definitely a bad news story. There's just no way to sugar-coat it, other than maybe to do what I've done on occasion and that is to say that by 2050 we'll have it right and we will have come through the peak oil recession—quite probably a very deep recession. At some point we'll come out of this because we're human beings, and we just don't give up. And I have faith in people ultimately. But it's a bad news story and anybody's who's going to stand up and talk about the bad news story and is in a position of responsibility in the government needs to then follow immediately and say “here's what we're going to do about it,” and no one seems prepared to do that. Peak oil is a bigger issue than health care, than federal budget deficits, and so forth. We're talking about something that, to take a middle of the road position—not the Armageddon extreme and not the la-la optimism of some people—is going to be extremely damaging to the U.S. and world economies for a very long period of time. There are no quick fixes." (more...) 8 September 2009 - Debate about peak oil is misleading By David Robertson, in Emirates 24/7 Despite the rather pessimistic view generated by the concept of peak oil, new fields are being discovered all the time. In the past couple of weeks alone we have had a 8.8 billion barrel discovery announced at the Soussangerd field in Iran and BP revealed a 5 billion- barrel find at the Tiber field in the Gulf of Mexico. However, before we get complacent and rush out to swap the Toyota Prius for a thirsty Land Rover, none of this new development is going to be easy to exploit. The days of oil bubbling out of the ground, as it used to do in Saudi and Bahrain, are long gone and the new fields are often extremely hard to tap. Take the BP find in the Gulf of Mexico. Its drill hole is a staggering 10,685 metres deep – this is nearly two kilometres more than the height of Mount Everest. The well is also in deep water, which will make it much more expensive to construct a drilling platform and pipeline to shore. The debate about peak oil is, therefore, misleading. We are not about to run out of oil any time soon, but we are going to have to pay a great deal more to get it out of the ground. We should be focussing on cost of production rather than some mythical tipping point at which we start to run out of oil. (more...) 4 September 2009 - Sweet dreams are made of geoengineering By Gerard Wynn, Reuters Farming plankton, sending solar panels into orbit, remodelling hydrogen -- for the latest wave of entrepreneurs suggesting easier ways out of climate change, it's all in a day's pitching. Some plans seek radical alternatives to fossil fuels. Other businesses are dreaming of geoengineering -- planning to tweak the earth's climate by removing heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) or reflecting sunlight into space. (more...) Among new energy fixes presented to Reuters in recent days is from U.S.-based BlackLight Power. The company says it may have tapped the energy that cosmologists have struggled to explain, called dark matter, which fills the universe. The concept involves shifting electrons in hydrogen molecules -- obtained cheaply from water -- into a lower orbit, releasing energy in the process. "It represents a boundless form of new primary energy," Randell Mills, founder and chief executive, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "I think it's going to replace all forms of fuel in the world." 3 September 2009 - BP makes 'giant' find in Gulf of Mexico by Tom Bergin, Calgary Herald In this story oil major BP PLC said it has made a 'giant' oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico one that analysts believe could contain more than one billion barrels of recoverable reserves, reaffirming the Gulf's strategic importance to the industry. Rig contractor Transocean Ltd. said the Tiber well was the oil and gas industry's deepest, at 10,683 metres in 1,260 metres of water. However, a billion barrels of oil represents only 1/30th of the world's annual consumption and extracting it from more than 10 kilometers below the surface of the hurricane prone Gulf of Mexico will be challenging. (more...) 14 August 2009 - Open Letter to Her Majesty the Queen Last year while touring the London School of Economics Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth famously inquired “Why did no one see it financial crisis and ensuing recession coming?” In response the British Academy suggested in an open letter in July that the cause was due to a failure of bankers and governments to appreciate the risks building up in financial markets. Last week another group of experts suggested in a second open letter that the first group was in a state of denial about the broader context in which the crisis arose."The key to addressing our current situation is to recognise the far more serious imbalances between our insatiable hunger for energy, its finite nature and the environmental pollution in its use.” They referred to an article recently published in the New York Times by Thomas Freidman who said, "Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it's telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: 'No more'." "Thankfully", they said, "there is a vibrant debate in civil society on these issues. Groups like Transition Towns, described by Jeremy Leggett as 'scalable microcosms of hope', and digital democracy Moveon.org, Getup.org, Dosomethingaboutit.org.uk, Localeyes.org and 38degrees.org.uk are giving individual citizens and collectives a new voice and real power in politics of change. 9 August 2009 - Economic outlook: Oil prices cloud recovery hopes By Chris Flood, The Financial Times The nascent recovery in global economic activity could yet be derailed by rising oil prices, with Brent crude hitting $76 a barrel last week, its highest levels of the year to date. In a blunt warning last week, Goldman Sachs called for a co-ordinated policy response to resolve the problems of commodity shortages, noting: “Although the financial crisis had been addressed, the commodity crisis has not.” Francisco Blanch, commodity strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, says that just as the rise in oil prices last year was an under-appreciated cause of the recession, this year’s collapse for crude prices has been an under-appreciated source of stimulus. “If oil prices go up, the choice for central banks will be to throw economies the developed world back into recession or to let headline inflation trend higher,” warns Mr Blanch. (more...) 3 August 2009 - Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world's top energy economist By Steve Connor, Science Editor, The Independent The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned. Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries. In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted (6.7% decline) and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated. By 2030 that decline would amount to a reduction of 75% of existing oil production capacity. In the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, the IEA has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an "oil crunch" within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said. (more...) 25 June 2009 - French wake-up call to Canada and the US The French government has come up with a paper, outlining a ”fair and ambitious agreement” in Copenhagen. In particular, the document lashes out at Canada and the US. Canada and the United States have to raise their level of ambition, a French government paper seen by Reuters says. Otherwise, it will be difficult for rich nations to meet the 25-40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases recommended by a UN climate panel in order to prevent dangerous effects of climate change. (more...) 7 March 2009 - The Inflection is Near by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, New York Times "We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ... We can’t do this anymore". (more...) 10 July 2008 - A British town's attempt to kick the oil habit By Nancy Durham, CBC News (link to CBC News video) Two years ago, British teacher and permaculturist Rob Hopkins (see site video) came up with a plan. He wanted to help communities prepare for the eventuality of a world without oil. That's how the concept of Transition Towns was born. The key to his initiative is sustainability at the local level — whether it's to do with food, transport, building materials or energy resources. Hopkins believes success in those areas will make a town more independent and resilient and prepare it for the day when the tap is turned off and there is no food delivery because the trucks are running on empty. Totnes, in Devon county in England's southwest, is the world's first Transition Town. It has long been known as a "laboratory town" — willing to experiment with unconventional lifestyles... Rather than focusing on the hardship of life after oil, Hopkins says he sees "the potential for an economic social and cultural renaissance the likes of which we've never seen before". (more...) 8 October 2008 - Farmer-in Chief An open letter to the President-Elect by Michael Pollan, NY Times It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention. (more...) Canadian News 26 September 2009 - Canada, the Laggard Editorial, The Ottawa Citizen This country risks becoming an international pariah with an obsolete economy. Reducing emissions is difficult, but not impossible. Other industrialized countries have managed to maintain or reduce their emissions levels, while Canada's have steadily risen despite our Kyoto commitments. In a meeting this week with the Citizen's editorial board, former Indian environment minister Suresh P. Prabhu expressed polite dismay at Canada's performance. How is it possible, he asked, that a wealthy country, a technologically advanced country, has so spectacularly failed to innovate? Yes, Canada's vast distances and cold climate make transportation and heating a challenge. But our natural resources, and even our sheer size, make energy diversity possible. We've got plenty of room for geothermal, biomass, wind, solar, low-impact hydro, nuclear -- you name it, Canada can do it. Canada just chooses not to. (more...) 25 September 2009 - Proponents see red over green plan by Lee Greenberg, The Ottawa Citizen The tricky business of going green in Ontario just got more complex on Thursday as the McGuinty government introduced a mandatory 'Buy Ontario' component for new solar and wind projects. The changes were part of a bundle of key policies designed to spark home-grown green manufacturing, as well as the wide deployment of its products -- everything from small, rooftop solar panels to industrial-sized wind farms. But in trying to strike a balance between competing interests, the Liberals appear to have rattled all sides in the debate. "The back and forth here is remarkable," said York University professor Mark Winfield, who teaches environmental studies. "It's almost erratic." (more...) 25 July 2009 - Apocalypse Soon By Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service Flooding. Drought. Wildfires. Mass migrations of desperate people. Mike Blanchfield explains why security experts fear climate change will lead to war on a scale we have yet to see on this planet ... Climate change has been linked to predictions of massive flooding, droughts, population explosions and massive migrations of uprooted and desperate people facing life-threatening food and water shortages."Climate security" is a phrase that is now being heard well beyond the war rooms of the West.The trepidation is that these threats will fuel a drive for war on a scale we have yet to see on this planet, bringing tension to stable parts of the world, making the tense places worse... Here in Canada, the connection between climate change and global instability is not discussed publicly. No one seems to know why. (more...) 3 July 2009 - The time to deal with climate change is now By Ed Miliband, special to The Ottawa Citizen A make-or-break moment for our planet is now only six months away. In Copenhagen this December, the world will try to find a deal on climate change -- and we have to succeed. Whether we do so cannot be left until the winter, and cannot be left to politicians alone. As part of our contribution and to open up debate, the British government is publishing our position for what the deal should include. Ed Miliband is the British secretary of state for energy and climate change. (more...) 1 June 2009 - Energy shock and oil myths Macleans, by Colin Campbell Jeff Rubin was, for years, a lonely voice among economists when it came to predicting the price of oil. In 2007—when crude began the year at a relatively modest $50 a barrel—Rubin, then the chief economist at CIBC, all but staked his reputation on a prediction that oil was about to hit triple-digit prices and never look back. In his reports, speeches and even addresses to skeptical oil executives, he preached the end of the era of cheap fossil fuels. “The bottom line is, we’re in the bottom of the ninth inning of the hydrocarbon age,” he declared... (more...) 30 April 2009 - Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions soaring Canada represents one of the fastest rates of growth in greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world. In 2007, emissions were 26 percent above the 1990 levels. Now Canada aims to end traditional coal power in the future. (more...) 3 April 2008 - Peak oil By Eve Savory, CBC News The authors of , Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl, tell CBC news correspondent Eve Savory they foresee radical social and political changes as the world's oil supply dwindles. If one accepts that climate change could be catastrophic for many ecosystems, including the multiple ones humans inhabit, what could possibly be considered more critical, more demanding of our full attention, ? The mother of all asteroids intersecting with our planet's orbit? All-out nuclear war? Aliens? Well, try peak oil (put simply, the point at which the rate of global oil production begins to decline). Peak oil has "the imperative of urgency," according to Richard Gilbert, an urban-issues consultant based in Toronto. "The likely outcome of not dealing with this issue is not an environmental catastrophe. It's an economic and social catastrophe that may leave us unable to deal with the environmental catastrophe," he said in an interview. (more...) 9 February 2006 - When the oil runs out Macleans, by Jonathon Gatehouse Are we heading for the end of civilization -- or are the warnings of a coming apocalypse just another case of Chicken Little? The Four Horsemen have upgraded to SUVs. Not the hybrid ones either, but those gas-guzzling, bunny-crushing behemoths that Arnold Schwarzenegger favours. In oil-rich Babylon, whores are so thick on the ground that it's a little hard to pick just one. Although everyone can agree on what the Antichrist is up to -- running a multinational petroleum company. Yes, the End is nigh, if you believe the consensus that has been brewing in the halls of academe and the non-fiction aisle at the local bookstore. Starting in 2010, no later than 2020 or 2030, according to the latest vision of secular apocalypse, global oil supplies will peak, and the world will begin to unravel at the seams… (more…) Ottawa News 4 October 2009 - Children's garden wins special design award By Maria Cook, The Ottawa Citizen Beyond an arched cedar gate in Old Ottawa East lies a luxuriant new public garden, planted with sunflowers, lavender, parsley, pumpkins, tomatoes and more. This is Ottawa’s first Children’s Garden, located at 321 Main St. at the corner of Clegg street in Robert Legget Park.The organic garden, created by community volunteers and children, has won a special jury award in the City of Ottawa’s 2009 Ottawa Urban Design Awards, presented Monday evening. “The garden is imaginative and uses delight and whimsy in defining a community space,” wrote the jurors. “This project breaks-down the barriers and professionalism in planning,” they wrote. “It involves a community taking ownership of its open space through successful engagement — a sentiment we need more of. “This project demonstrates that a park can capture the imagination of children through proper dialogue, inclusiveness and clever educational programs, without building a traditional play structure.” The awards celebrate projects built in Ottawa between September 2007 and September 2009 that exhibit urban design excellence. (more...) 27 September 2009 - City must fix 'cracks in its armour' By Kathryn May, The Ottawa Citizen Ottawa has "cracks in its economic armour" that must be fixed before mapping a vision for a new "sustainable" nation's capital into the next century, warned Rob Abbott, one of Canada's leading sustainability experts, at the region's Choosing Our Future conference. But Abbott said the time is also ripe to question whether existing institutions are up to the challenge and whether they should be reformed to deliver that vision. He worries that after all the resources put into planning, "we won't spend enough time on whether it can be done with our existing bureaucracies and governments." He said planners and politicians too often think the vision is so "captivating" that people will make the necessary changes themselves to get there. "I think we need less planning and more organizational and institutional reforms, so plans have the potential to take root," he said. "Too often we get a plan, but don't deliver. Why? I think we need to contemplate a refreshed view of what these organizations need to look like. We are in a new century, we're facing new issues, new opportunities and new risks. I think we are deluding ourselves if we think the same basic approach will allow us to prosper." (more...) 26 August 2009 - Ottawa is big on green talk, but small on results: Doucet By Patrick Dare, The Ottawa Citizen The City of Ottawa talks a big strategy about being a green city and saving the environment, but little progress has been made in the last decade, says Councillor Clive Doucet. He was reacting Tuesday to a report at city council's planning and environment committee titled Refresh the City's Environmental Strategy. That document uses inspiring phrases to describe the city's environmental vision. Goals are "a green city," "development in harmony with the environment," "a focus on walking, cycling and transit" and "clean air, water and earth." But Doucet says the strategy was created in 2003 and "nothing significant" has been done for the environment since then. (more...) 17 July 2009 - Rebates are out of style Editorial, The Ottawa Citizen '' The most clumsy way for governments to encourage green behaviour is to send out cheques to people who buy approved products. It's an approach that smacks of the haphazard, feel-good tactics of the 1990s. We ought to be able to come up with something better in 2009. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty does deserve credit for taking action, even if that action is inefficient and outmoded. His announcement of rebates ranging from $4,000 to $10,000 for electric cars will probably get at least a few more of these cars on the road, sooner. Those are substantial rebates that might make a serious difference, especially to someone already considering an electric car. (more...) 13 July 2009 - Ottawa on track to break trail on green power By Mohammed Adam, ''The Ottawa Citizen. West Carleton farm poised to become massive solar hub. As controversies over green power projects erupt across Ontario, Ottawa is quietly leading a revolution in solar farming that will soon make the nation's capital home to one of the largest solar-energy plants of its kind in North America. A 200-acre farm in West Carleton is about to undergo a $100-million investment that will see 300,000 silvery solar panels installed there. Once this solar farm becomes operational at the end of the year, it's expected to generate about 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 7,000 homes during peak hours. It will be Canada's largest photovoltaic plant, one that converts sunlight directly into electricity. (more...) 4 July 2009 - Councillor offers parks for wind turbine tests By Brendan Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen Graham Findlay may have been denied the chance to operate a small wind turbine in his backyard, but his efforts have inspired his local councillor, Kitchissippi Councillor Christine Leadman, to suggest that the city should try out small-scale wind projects in its urban parks. “I think it would really be a great opportunity if we could look at piloting something in an area where the (bylaw) variances are not going to be an issue and people can see how these things operate,” Councillor Leadman said, adding that she would like to see infrastructure money for two parks in her ward — McKellar Park and Parkdale Park — go toward renewable energy initiatives, such as wind turbines and solar panels. “Why not be innovative and start with our own facilities?” she said. (more...) 3 July 2009 - Ill-prepared for the post-oil economy By Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen There was a time when politicians claimed Canada would become a world leader in clean, green technologies -- that our educated workforce, abundant resources and entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with inspired government policy, would revitalize our economy and help save the planet. No one talks that way anymore. How could they, with straight faces? We have ceded leadership on climate change to U.S. President Barack Obama, and, to a lesser extent, the Europeans. It will be other countries that profit from the inevitable revolution in manufacturing, energy production and lifestyle choices that a green economy will bring. Not Canada. (more...) 3 July 2009 - Province says no to backyard wind turbine By Brendan Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen The city’s first application to put up a small wind turbine in a residential area has been denied by the Ontario Municipal Board, and the Ottawa man behind the proposal says he is giving up the fight for his backyard power generator. “It’s an opportunity lost to try something new,” said Graham Findlay. “I guess people ran away from that opportunity out of fear — fear of the unknown.” ... Ontario’s Green Energy Act, passed May 14,2009 makes no mention of residential wind turbines such as Findlay’s. But it does say that Planning Act instruments, including zoning bylaws, will no longer apply to renewable-energy installations. (more...) 13 May 2009 - Bigger Isn't Better By Peter Victor, Special to the Ottawa Citizen ... It is time to rethink the old idea that the solution to all our problems lies in the incessant expansion of the economy. Rich countries like should explore alternatives, especially if poorer countries are to benefit from economic growth for a while in a world increasingly constrained by biophysical limits. Some deny or simply ignore these limits and argue that economic growth in rich countries is necessary to stimulate growth in poorer ones. Others say that with "green" growth we can expand economic output as we reduce the demands we place on nature through more efficient production, better designed products, fewer goods and more services, compact urban forms, and organic agriculture. While these measures may well help in a transition they are an unlikely prescription for the long term. What is required is a radical rethinking of our economies and their relation to the natural world.(more...) 16 January 2009 - Ontario's electric car infrastructure will use "cell phone" business plan By: Brian Jackson, ITBusiness.ca The Province of Ontario has partnered with a California-based company that will develop a plan to provide an infrastructure for electric cars. Instead of filling up at the pumps, drivers will be topping up batteries at "charge spots" or swapping out depleted batteries at battery replacement centres. Ontarians could soon be paying a monthly bill to power their cars with clean electricity instead of paying at the pumps to fill up on gasoline, the government revealed in an announcement yesterday. Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the Province is partnering with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Better Place LLC to create a province-wide grid that could conveniently power electric cars. Drivers will pay to charge up their car batteries in the same way they pay for their mobile phone bills – through a combination subscription-based system, and pay-per-use model. "Commuters will be able to buy miles for their car like they buy music for their iPods or minutes for their cell phones," McGuinty said at a press conference in Toronto. "That's an idea with the power to re-shape our province." (more...) Better Place is partnering with Bullfrog Power, Canada's only retailer of 100 percent green electricity, to provide all of the renewable energy needed to power the Better Place network. Watch press conference announcing the partnership by Premier McGuinty.